In recent years, an emission control for an automobile has been tightened up more and more, and an exhaust gas purifying catalyst has been required to purify harmful components contained in exhaust gas, for example, unburned hydrocarbon (HC) and carbon monoxide with high efficiency. The exhaust gas purifying catalyst is one in which precious metal particles are supported on a surface of a base material such as alumina. The exhaust gas purifying catalyst oxidizes the harmful components contained in the exhaust gas by the precious metal particles, and converts the harmful components into water and gas, which are harmless components. Moreover, in general, purification performance of the catalyst is enhanced as a surface area of the precious metal particles is larger, and accordingly, a particle diameter of the precious metal particles is reduced, whereby the surface area of the precious metal particles is increased, and surface energy thereof is increased.
Here, at an initial stage, the precious metal particles of the exhaust gas purifying catalyst are in a state of ultrafine particles with a diameter of several nanometers or less. However, there is a problem that, as the exhaust gas purifying catalyst is being exposed to a high-temperature oxidizing atmosphere, the surface of the precious metal particles is oxidized, the precious metal particles located in mutual vicinities are coagulated with each other and are coarsened to several ten nanometers, and the surface area of the precious metal particles is decreased, resulting in a decrease of a purification rate for such harmful substances. In order to prevent the decrease of the surface area owing to the coarsening of the precious metal particles, development regarding a production method of precious metal particles with a large surface area, such as a reversed micelle method, has been advanced.
In this reversed micelle method, first, an aqueous solution containing a surfactant and a catalyst active component (for example, a precious metal element) is mixed into an organic solvent. Thereafter, an emulsion solution, in which reversed micelles containing the aqueous solution containing the precious metal are formed, is prepared in the organic solvent, and the precious metal is deposited therein. Thereafter, the precious metal is reduced or insolubilized, and the precious metal atomized in the reversed micelle is precipitated. The reversed micelle method is a method as described above. Moreover, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-42411, a method is disclosed, which is for producing a catalyst in such a manner that an element having an oxygen occlusion function is contained in the reversed micelles in an emulsion solution preparation step. In this reversed micelle method, the catalyst active component is supported on the base material in the reversed micelles contained in the emulsion solution, and thereafter, the reversed micelles are collapsed, and an obtained deposit is subjected to the respective steps of filtration, drying, milling and calcining, whereby the catalyst is produced. The catalyst produced by using this production method not only can support the element having the oxygen occlusion function on the base material but also supports the catalyst active component also on an outermost surface of the base material and pore surfaces formed in the base material, and accordingly, can enhance activity thereof.
However, in the above-described reversed micelle method, there has been a problem that, since the catalyst is produced by spraying and calcining the emulsion solution in which the reversed micelles are formed, a production process of the catalyst becomes complicated, leading to an increase of production cost thereof.
In this connection, it is an object of the present invention to provide an exhaust gas purifying catalyst in which a production process is simple and a high purification rate can be maintained for a long term, and to provide a production method of the exhaust gas purifying catalyst.
Patent Document 1: Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No.